Paleo Orange Cookies (vegan, grain-free, gluten-free, dairy-free)

These soft and chewy paleo orange cookies are vegan, grain-free, gluten-free, and dairy-free and have orange icing (that doesn’t melt at room temperature!).

Are you all cookied out? I hope not! I had hoped to post these iced orange cookies last week but chaos got in the way.

I also decided to do another video (if you’re reading this post from my newsletter, please click here to view the video), which took ages but at least didn’t take nearly as long as my first one in this paleo vegan hot chocolate. Yay!

I actually only wanted to make this video because I’ve seen so many videos of people zesting the other way. The way in my video is SO much easier than holding the zester right side up! It might feel awkward at the beginning but then you’re going to wonder why you ever did it the other way. ;)

You can see what you’re doing and it stays put on the top of the zester rather than falling into the bowl. For the video, I just dumped all the zest into the bowl but in real life, I measure it.

Every Christmas, my grandmother would make orange cookies. The puffy kind with icing (they look like these).

I’ve never actually made them before because I’m not a huge fan of that puffy texture – though I certainly ate a ton of them growing up! I very rarely turn down a homemade cookie.

If you like my paleo lemon cookies, you’ll love these! It’s basically the same recipe with orange and more importantly… icing!

You can make the icing in a high-speed blender, or if your coconut butter and oil are softened and easily to mix in with other ingredients, you can just mix it by hand. But I don’t recommend actually melting the coconut oil and butter. Melting it seems to do weird stuff.

If you use unrefined coconut oil in the cookies and the icing, you can taste it. If you’ve got a spouse who is tired of “coconut flavored everything,” then you’ll probably want to use refined coconut oil.

But! You can still taste it a bit in the icing because of the coconut butter. There’s no sub for it so I’m afraid there’s nothing to do about that. :/

One thing I love about the icing is that it holds up well at room temperature (thanks to the coconut butter!). At least in the winter. If your room temperature coconut oil is melted, the frosting’s going to melt, too. So if you make these during the warmer months, definitely refrigerate them!

While these vegan orange cookies aren’t puffy, they don’t have a normal all-purpose flour cookie texture. But that shouldn’t prevent you from making them! They’re lovely. And perfect for holiday parties and gift giving.

The icing hardens so that you can stack them. In these pictures and in the video, I iced them and put in the fridge for only 10 minutes to try to get the frosting to firm up just a little, but they were still quite soft.

Concerning the sweetener – I used maple syrup (which you can’t taste as long as you use a lighter kind) but I’m thinking honey would be awesome in these for a non-vegan version. You might have to watch the bake time, though, since they’ll probably cook a little quicker. I’ve tried it in the icing and love it!

1/8 - 1/2 teaspoon orange extract (the amount will depend on your brand of extract and how orangey you want them)

pinch of salt

Directions

In a large mixing bowl, mix together the coconut oil, maple syrup, orange zest and extract. Add the almond flour, coconut flour, baking soda and salt. The mixture will be thin and wet and much more like batter than dough. Do not add any additional flour! Chilling will firm it up. Let the dough sit for 5 minutes and then place the bowl in the refrigerator for 30 minutes or until the dough is firm.

Preheat the oven to 350°F (176°C) and line a baking sheet with a piece of parchment paper.

For the large cookies pictured, roll into six 53-gram balls. Place 3" apart on the prepared baking sheet and press the balls down slightly with your palm.

Bake for 12-15 minutes or until the cookies have lightly browned (not just the edges but also the middle of the cookies). The cookies may crackle a little.

The cookies will still be very soft when you remove them from the oven. Let them cool on the pan completely.

Store in an airtight container for up to 4 days.

Prepare the frosting. Combine all of the ingredients in a high-powered blender and blend for about 20 seconds at medium or until totally smooth. Don't blend too long or it'll melt. You can also mix this by hand if your coconut butter and oil are soft enough. Spread a heaping tablespoon over each cookie. Iced cookies can be kept at room temperature for up to 2 days or refrigerated for up to 4-5 days.

Notes

Using unrefined coconut oil would yield cookies with some coconut flavor

Unfortunately, nuts flours aren’t interchangeable with non-nut flours. I’ve heard of people using sunflower seed flour as a sub but I’ve never tried it and have no idea if it’d work here. Sorry about that!

I’ve also been meaning to try that! I bet you could use dark chocolate in my paleo chocolate fudge frosting. :) And it’d have the perfect texture for these cookies! I’d love to hear how they come out if you try them. :)